New Delhi, Oct. 24 -- The outcome of Assembly elections in
Maharashtra and Haryana is out. As projected by political experts; the
actual results rightly are; the Indian National Congress (INC) bites
dust in both the states and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) makes
sweeping victory in Haryana (47 out of 90) and 'historic' win
in Maharastra (123 out of 288). The party is forming governments in both
the states with RSS hands as heads of the states.

The ultimate loser is the Congress because it has been ruling the
states - Haryana and Maharashtra for last 10 and 15 years respectively.
And the principal gainer is the BJP for, the party has won only 4 seats
in Haryana in 2009 and it was positioned as the fourth party, at most,
throughout the history of Maharashtra, but this election directly put it
on the driving seat kicking the Congress on third position in both the
states for the first time.

The result was very much expected for me and even for any general
students of Indian politics. The Congress had a chance, though by
default, to at least make a face-saver retaining Maharashtra for the
fourth consecutive terms in alliance with NCP following a split between
the BJP and the Shiv Sena. But the party leadership once again utterly
failed to take right decision at the right time, exposing its command
and control as virtually collapsed and it is now a head-less party.

In this chaotic but politically open atmosphere Muslims in
Maharashtra seem to have not voted very maturely again. They went after
emotional rhetoric in some constituencies. The majority Muslim
constituencies like 2 in Bhiwandi, one each in Mumbra, Kurla, Bandra,
Aurangabad and Nanded went to Shiv Sena or BJP because of heavy division
of minority votes among so-called secular party candidates from
Congress, NCP, SP or AIMIM.

According to the result announced by the state election commission
on 19 October, the Maharashtra house will have a total of 123 BJP MLAs
followed by 63 of Shiv Sena, 42 of the Congress, 41 of the NCP, 03 of
Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and 02 MLAs of the All India Majlis-e Ittehadul
Muslimeen (AIMIM) and others belonging to smaller parties.

The number of Muslim MLAs in the previous Maharashtra Assembly was
11 only, not a satisfactory figure either, comparing to Muslims' 15
percent population in the state. This figure would have been little
better this time had the Congress and NCP not broken their alliance
before elections. Results show in Bhiwandi Shoeb Guddu of Congress was
leading however due to the votes taken by Rashid Tahir Momin of the NCP
he lost the election.

Other losers are Baba Siddiqui, Nawab Malik and Bashir Musa Patel.
All three are experienced, former MLAs and senior leaders of their
respective parties. They lost the election because their parties could
not transfer the non-Muslim votes in their favour.

The results once again proved that while the Congress and other
secular parties win the elections on Muslim votes, when the time comes
non-Muslim voters do not vote for Muslim candidates belonging to these
parties.

The hallmark of this election, for Muslims, however is the
emergence of the Hyderabad based All Indian Majlis-e Ittehadul Muslimeen
(AIMIM) - the party led by the vocal MP Asaduddin Owaisi has made its
presence felt. The AIMIM, which contested the Maharashtra election for
the first time has fielded 24 candidates, pulled over a half million
votes, won two seats, runner up in three, 3rd in eight seats.

The performance is good for a debutant party. However it is yet to
be seen how this 'Muslim' party is going to help the Muslims
in Maharashtra in this highly polarized political and communal
conditions.

There is no sign visible anywhere that the 'Head'-less
Congress can recover from these shockers in near future. The upcoming
elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkand and Assam will bring the same
ill-fate for the party. Writings on the walls are clear; polity in India
is drastically changed, BJP is going to stay in the centre stage for a
longer period than Vajpayee era.

The author M. Burhanuddin Qasmi is director of Markazul
Ma'arif Education and Research Centre, Mumbai and editor of Eastern
Crescent magazine.